VIRGINIA CARTOGRAPHY. 15 



of men, women, animals, fish, fowls, fruits or plants. They are 

 highly finished. De Bry's copies are very close, but not embel- 

 lished. The following extracts from the writer's report on the 

 collection, dated 22d of March, 1866, when oiTering it to the 

 Trustees of the British Museum, are given with the hope of 

 removing some of the aspersions that have been of late cast 

 upon the famous collection, and encouraging collectors to 

 repose confidence in the honesty of the great Frankfort family 

 of engravers. The drawings are beautifully bound in two vol- 

 umes in red morocco. 



" ' To A. Panizzi, Esq., etc., etc., British Museum. . . . The 

 two volumes, with some aids from the Grenville Library, will 

 speak for themselves, but the following notes may facilitate your 

 researches. They are chiefly drawn out of Hnkluyt, Purcbas, 

 De Bry, Hariot, Captain John Smith, and others.' 



" ' The larger volume contains seventy-six original drawings 

 in colors done for Sir Walter Raleigh by John White, the Eng- 

 lish painter, who was sent by Queen Elizabeth, in 1585, to 

 Virginia, as principal draughtsman in Raleigh's famous second 

 expedition for exploring the country and planting his ' First 

 Colonic.' This expedition of seven ships was under the com- 

 mand of Sir Richard Grenville, the ancestor, I believe, of the 

 founder of the Grenville Library. Thomas Candish, or Caven- 

 dish, was also of the fleet, and Master Ralph Lane was the Gov- 

 ernor of the Colonic. This ' First Colonic,' consisting of 109 

 men, remained in Virginia one whole year and then returned to 

 England in July, 1586, in Sir Francis Drake's fleet, returning 

 victorious from the West Indies, because the long expected sup- 

 plies and reinforcements from England had not arrived. Four- 

 teen days after their departure. Sir Richard Grenville arrived 

 with new stores and new planters, to find the Old Colonic 

 deserted.' 



" ' To Thomas Hariot and John White, two of these 109, we 

 owe nearly all we know of that grand and most unfortunate 

 expedition, and it is not too much to say, I think, that to them 

 alone we may fairly ascribe nearly all the accurate knowledge we 

 have of the Lidians and the natural history of that country for a 

 full century later.' 



